Chapter 130 Exclusively Published on Jinjiang Literature City: Selling One's Wife for Glory
Miao Jinfeng, Lu Qing, and the other women who happened to be passing by the covered walkway on their way to prepare lunch were all startled. "What's going on?"
At first, they thought something had happened to one of the women in the village, but when they noticed that the person in Wu Yang's arms was clearly not from their village, they breathed a sigh of relief, followed by confusion.
Could they be disaster victims rescued from outside?
Why did Wu Yang suddenly have such a kind heart? Isn't he afraid of causing trouble after rescuing someone?
Lu Xuan beckoned to Wu Yang, instructing him to lead the person to the small hall in the main courtyard.
After taking a blanket from his spatial storage and placing it on the ground for Wu Yang to put the person on, Lu Xuan took out a medical device to examine the person on the ground.
After Wu Yang put the person down, Lu Xuan also saw what the other person looked like.
His face was thin and pale, with some abrasions visible on his face, making him look quite disheveled.
But he had no other thoughts besides that.
Lu Qing, who had come over to lend a hand, changed her expression upon seeing the woman's appearance and exclaimed in surprise, "Li Yue!?"
"What?!" Miao Jinfeng, who had been debating whether to cook first or watch the commotion, suddenly rushed over, glanced at the woman's face, and exclaimed excitedly, "A-Yue!!"
The other villagers were also astonished, "Is it really Li Yue from the village chief's family?"
"How did she end up in Yangshan County?"
"Wu Yang, where did you find her?"
Wu Yang hurriedly said, "I found her by chance on the road," and then anxiously asked Lu Xuan, "How is she?"
At this moment, the rest of the Li family rushed over. Hearing Miao Jinfeng holding the woman on the ground and calling Li Yue's name, they were immediately energized.
"Is she really my older sister?"
"Is that Yue? Yue is still alive!?"
When Li Jing and Li Tuo saw their sister, whom they had lost and then found again, their eyes immediately welled up with tears.
Li Tie noticed that his daughter looked unwell, and while he was excited, he couldn't help but feel worried.
"Ah Xuan, how is Ah Yue? Is she alright? Is she injured and unconscious, or is there something wrong with her body?"
Lu Xuan, who had already examined Li Yue, replied, "There's nothing seriously wrong. She just fainted from hunger and exhaustion."
Besides these, there are some minor issues such as malnutrition, stomach problems, neurasthenia, and minor injuries.
Lu Xuan cured the external injuries on the spot with the medical device. As for the other minor ailments, he took out a few pills and had Lu Qing help Miao Jinfeng take them. After some recuperation, she would recover.
In addition to the medicine, Lu Qing also fed her a nutritional supplement.
Once her physical condition recovered, Li Yue quickly opened her eyes with a soft groan.
The Li family members became even more excited upon seeing this, exclaiming, "Sister! You're awake!"
"Ah Yue!"
Li Yue, who had just woken up, vaguely heard the voices of her relatives and murmured softly, "Am I dreaming?"
Miao Jinfeng's voice choked with emotion, "It's not a dream, A-Yue, it's us! I'm your mother!"
“…Mother?” Li Yue tried to open her eyes wide to look at the person in front of her. When she realized that it was really the relative she had been dreaming of seeing, her pupils couldn’t help but dilate slightly.
Turning his head, he noticed several other people beside him and murmured, "Father, and eldest brother, sister-in-law, little brother...?"
The Li family members who were called nodded vigorously, "It's us! We're all here!"
With tears in his eyes, Li Tie asked her, "How did you end up like this? How did Zhou Chenghai take care of you? And what about Xiaoxiao, the child?"
Still reeling from the joy of reuniting with her family, Li Yue trembled upon hearing her daughter's name. She then threw herself into Miao Jinfeng's arms and broke down in tears, crying, "Xiaoxiao, Xiaoxiao is gone, Mother! Xiaoxiao is dead—!"
"What!?" The Li family's expression changed drastically.
The expressions of the surrounding villagers also changed.
Lu Xuan, who had stepped aside, showed no surprise.
He remembered Lu Qing saying that Li Yue's daughter, Zhou Xiaoxiao, was the same age as Liu's Fang Yuan, only three years old.
It would be almost impossible for such a young child to survive the extreme heat without the help of Covenant high-tech items.
Li Yue cried for a long time before finally, under questioning from her family, she choked up and told them everything that had happened after she left her parents' home before the earthquake.
She didn't believe her family's account of the impending disaster at first, but secretly she used her dowry to buy some food in case of emergency.
Subsequent events proved that her decision was absolutely correct.
However, Li Yue herself was fortunate enough to survive the earthquake unharmed, but her daughter Zhou Xiaoxiao was unfortunately injured.
The injury wasn't initially very serious; if it had been treated in time, it might have been irreversible.
But the whole town of Baisong was in chaos after the earthquake. Then the temperature kept rising. Zhou Xiaoxiao had a fever because of her injuries, and her wounds started to ulcerate. Later, she suffered from heatstroke and died in less than five days.
The Li family was heartbroken to hear this. Although Li Kangbao was only eight years old, he was already quite sensible. After understanding that his little cousin had died, he couldn't help but cry loudly in grief.
Miao Jinfeng hugged her daughter with sadness and heartache, comforting her, "It's all in the past. At least you're still alive, which is a great blessing in disguise for us."
Li Tie asked in a hoarse voice, "And then?"
Li Yue continued, "I originally wanted to go back to the village to find you, but I found that the road was blocked by underground cracks, and the original location of the village could not be found at all. In the end, I could only go back to the town."
However, Baisong Town was also mostly destroyed in the earthquake, and cracks were everywhere in the town. The authorities were slow to send people to provide disaster relief, and more and more people took the opportunity to cause trouble in the town. Fearing that it would be unsafe to stay any longer, the Zhou family packed their bags and went to the county town with other people who were also preparing to leave to seek a way to make a living.
When they left, no one expected how much the previous major earthquake had changed the surrounding terrain.
They walked for a long time, but not only did they fail to reach the county town, they also completely lost their way and couldn't even find the way back to Baisong Town.
In the end, all they could do was continue walking aimlessly, stopping and starting to avoid the ever-increasing heat.
Because Li Yue had stockpiled food in advance, the Zhou family didn't have to worry about not having enough to eat. However, Li Yue's parents-in-law were old and unfortunately suffered from heatstroke on the way and never got up again. In the end, only she and her husband Zhou Chenghai were left to rely on each other.
During the hottest part of the season, the two of them almost couldn't make it through, but they finally got the first rain and the temperature dropped, and they arrived in Yangshan County eight days ago.
At this point, Li Yue's previously relatively stable emotions became intense again.
“At first, after entering the city, we just found a place to stay in the west of the city and survived by searching for supplies in the ruins. But Zhou Chenghai somehow got in touch with the thugs of the gambling den and joined the gambling den’s forces.”
The villagers couldn't help but frown. Of the four factions in the city, why did they have to join the gambling den?
Considering the gambling den's numerous misdeeds that they had learned about through various channels over the past few days, they had a gut feeling that Li Yue's future days would probably be difficult.
The facts are just as they thought.
The gambling den was full of hot-blooded thugs who couldn't find wives. Li Yue, a young woman, was brought there by Zhou Chenghai as a family member, and she was inevitably harassed and molested by those thugs.
More than one person attempted to take advantage of Li Yue while Zhou Chenghai was out collecting protection money with other thugs, and Li Yue managed to avoid them each time with great difficulty.
She mentioned it to Zhou Chenghai many times afterward and tried to persuade him to take her away, but Zhou Chenghai didn't take it to heart at all. He even complained that she was making a fuss and said that those people were just joking with her.
Upon hearing this, Li Jing and Li Tuo felt a surge of intense anger rising in their chests.
"Is he even a man?! His wife is being targeted by other men, and instead of standing up for you, he thinks you're making a fuss?"
"When you proposed to me, you said you would protect me forever. Is this how you protect me, X?!"
Little did the Li brothers know that even worse things were yet to come.
Zhou Chenghai was an outsider and not particularly skilled, so even after joining the gambling den, he wasn't treated well.
Not only was Li Yue frequently harassed, but he himself was also occasionally used as a punching bag by veteran thugs.
Zhou Chenghai, who used to be the young master of a grocery store, had never been treated like this before. In order to get rid of his lowly status and avoid being bullied, he wanted to find a way to gain Feng Hu's favor.
The only way to curry favor with superiors is through money and sex.
Zhou Chenghai naturally had no money, so the only way was through sex.
When Li Yue mentioned that Zhou Chenghai wanted to curry favor with Feng Hu, the viewers in the live stream had already guessed Zhou Chenghai's intentions.
He sold his wife for personal gain.
That's right, Zhou Chenghai had the idea of sending Li Yue to Feng Hu's bed.
He didn't hide anything from Li Yue. He not only openly told her his plans, but also said to her, "As long as you follow Boss Feng and find a way to have a son or daughter with him, we won't have to worry about the rest of our lives."
Finally, he shamelessly added, "You don't need to worry about being left without support after Boss Feng gets tired of you. As long as you can get through this difficult time, I will still want you in the future and I will never look down on you."
"Shameless—!" The Li family and villagers were furious upon hearing this.
"Bastard! Where is that bastard! I'm going to kill him right now!" Li Jing and Li Tuo were so angry that their eyes turned red, and their expressions were so fierce that they looked like they wanted to devour Zhou Chenghai.
The live stream chat was filled with all sorts of vulgar insults directed at Zhou Chenghai. Because they were so offensive, many of them were censored and only asterisks could be seen. Some people even spent a lot of money to send gifts, wanting to hire Lu Xuan to beat Zhou Chenghai to death for them.
Li Tie, his face dark with anger, roared, "Let Yue finish speaking!"
Li Jing and Li Tuo clenched their fists, forcing themselves not to rush out.
Li Yue said in a hoarse voice, "Of course I didn't want to do that kind of thing, so I had a big fight with him. Zhou Chenghai even wanted to lock me up. In a fit of anger, I grabbed a candlestick in the room, knocked him unconscious, and escaped."
Fortunately, most of the gambling den's staff had gone to the north of the city these past few days, leaving the main camp relatively empty. Li Yue managed to escape without much effort by avoiding the people left behind.
Because of his panic, and because the roads had been slippery from the rain these past few days, he slipped and fell several times while escaping, resulting in numerous external injuries. Later, after encountering Wu Yang, he relaxed and fainted.
As for malnutrition and neurasthenia, these are lingering effects from the extremely hot season and the loss of the child that I haven't been able to recover from.
After saying this, tears of regret streamed down Li Yue's haggard face again. Her thin fingers gripped Miao Jinfeng's sleeve tightly as she cried out, "I should have listened to you and Father and stayed. If I had stayed, Xiaoxiao might not have had this accident." She wouldn't have had to face all the unbearable experiences that followed.
Miao Jinfeng never expected that her seemingly good son-in-law would show such an ugly face in the face of disaster, and she felt extremely hatred for Zhou Chenghai.
She held her daughter's hand to comfort her, saying, "Don't worry, that bastard Zhou Chenghai bullied you, we will definitely not let him get away with it!"
“That’s right!” Li Tuo said angrily, “Sister, you wait, I’ll go and drag Zhou Chenghai here to get revenge for you!”
The other villagers were also very angry about Zhou Chenghai's actions when they heard the ending.
Why should the daughters of their village who have married out be treated so badly by an outsider!
Even if Zhou Chenghai fails to achieve his goal, the grievances he caused Li Yue should not be forgotten.
“We’re going to the gambling den right now to settle accounts with Zhou Chenghai.”
"That's right! Make him kneel down and apologize to Li Yue!"
"What's there to apologize for? Just arrest them and beat them to death! This kind of beast has no right to live!"
Wu Yang didn't appear as excited as the other young men, but the anger in his eyes was no less than that of Li Jing and Li Tuo.
Wu Cheng glanced at his son and said to the village chief, whose face was also gloomy, "Because of what happened in the north of the city, the people at the gambling den already don't like us. If a group of us goes to the gambling den to find Zhou Chenghai, Feng Hu might think that we are signaling war. At that time, it may not just be about Zhou Chenghai. We might accidentally end up fighting against all the thugs in the gambling den."
Fists and kicks have no eyes; once dozens or hundreds of people start fighting, even if they win in the end, it's hard to guarantee that no one will accidentally get into an accident along the way.
Wu Cheng certainly didn't think they shouldn't seek revenge on Zhou Chenghai; he was just reminding Li Tie that even if they were to go, they should at least be fully prepared and not let anger cloud their judgment.
If something were to happen to any of the able-bodied men in the family, it would be difficult to guarantee that their relatives wouldn't take their anger out on Li Yue, which would be detrimental to Li Yue, who had endured a lot of hardship outside and finally returned home.
After hearing Wu Cheng's words, Li Tie, who was furious, finally calmed down a bit.
At this moment, Lu Xuan, who had been silent all along, spoke up: "We can send out the drone to see where the people in the gambling den are now. Zhou Chenghai is just a small fry who just joined, so he might not be with the others. If we can catch him alone, we can deal with him however we want."
As for whether the gambling den will discover that the person is missing afterward, even if a newly joined thug really disappears, Feng Hu might not care much.
If the other party discovers that they were the ones who did it and tries to use that as an excuse to cause trouble, then we might as well take care of them too.
Although the young men were still furious, they weren't truly reckless. Before standing up for Li Yue, they had to think about their own families, so they all nodded in agreement with Lu Xuan's suggestion.
Lu Xuan quickly launched the drone into the night.
Their residence wasn't too far from the gambling den. In just over ten minutes, the drone had already located the gambling den's headquarters and spotted Feng Hu talking to his men through a half-open window.
Lu Xuan did not see Zhou Chenghai's figure on the screen. He was about to control the drone to search another place, but the drone's sensitive recording device picked up several names mentioned by Feng Hu, which made him stop. A cold light suddenly appeared in his calm eyes.
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